


The Fall and Rise of Monica Fuentes

by lousy_science



Category: 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), Fast Five (2011), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:07:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5465930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lousy_science/pseuds/lousy_science
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monica fell down once. She's going to find her way back up. </p><p>By herself, that is. The giant dude in Under Armour who is always sitting in her physio clinic has nothing to do with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fall and Rise of Monica Fuentes

Bronze light shone off the roof of the Zenith Physiotherapy and Physical Rehabilitation Clinic. For a few moments it looked like something divine, a perfect white cube set into the urban landscape by higher beings who were daring humans to come and worship them. Then Monica lowered her Ray-Bans and saw it for what it was. Another cheap box built quick by commercial developers who didn’t care if it was a tanning salon, sushi restaurant, or health center.

Either side of it there were similar buildings, containing tanning salons and sushi restaurants, and the four o’clock sun felt exhausted already. It had been out all day offering life to indifferent Californians, and now it was on the verge of giving up and letting the smog win.

She knew how that felt. Her insides felt grey and scratchy, like she was lined with sandpaper. The nagging ache in her hip kept time with her heartbeat. Due to a mix-up with her insurance she’d not been able to get a decent physio referral for two months, and the pain had worn on her until she felt like little more than nerve endings and flaky bones.

Monica Ines Esperanza Fuentes had survived a three-day siege by drug lords in a deserted town in Coahuila, being shot by a crooked undercover officer in a border tunnel in an attempt to steal 100 kilos of pure cocaine, and getting stabbed twice while intercepting a kidnapping in Bogotá. One time she’d been held at gunpoint on a boat when a car landed on them. After all that, it had been a four-inch deep slab of concrete that brought her down.

She had dashed over a wobbly patio stone in flip-flops - blue ones, borrowed from her oldest niece, Consuela, to wear to the pool that afternoon - which had lurched under her like the ocean. _Fwap_. She landed on the ground hip-first.

Maite was following her with the drinks. Monica remembered the sound of her sister gasping and the sudden splash of lemonade on her legs, just before the sound of the glasses smashing. One of the splinters lodged in her left toe. The A&E guy told her off for wearing cheap sandals, said that he spent all summer dealing with flip-flop-related accidents. His advice to her was “Consider getting some Crocs.”

Monica had some advice for him that would’ve got her banned from the hospital and possibly arrested. Instead, she spent fourteen hours of her precious vacation time getting x-rayed, splinted, poked, neglected, and informed that she had torn two tendons, broken four bones, and would require extensive rehabilitation before she could walk without crutches.

She was not a crier. But when Maite dropped her off at her apartment two days later, she sat in front of her open wardrobe looking at her shoes and wept.

 

=

Inside the physio clinic there was a reception area containing five chairs, two ficus plants and a man the size of a baby triceratops. Monica kept her aviators on so that she could drink him in without showing so much as a flicker of interest. It would’ve been hard not to look at all, what with him taking up around 75% of the airspace, but his size aside, neither the ficus nor the Spinal Care information posters could compete with him for aesthetic interest.

Picking up a decrepit issue of _Time_ magazine Monica held it up and made like she was interested in what it had to say about the Starr Report while methodically scoping out the combination redwood-volcano-Norse God sitting patiently with one arm in a sling. Looking at him was like gazing over a stunningly cultivated garden in bloom. He was about the size of a state park, after all.

Monica liked to look, always had, that was one way she’d dealt with all the stares she’d got since these boobs and ass had showed up on her fourteen-year-old frame. She kept her head up and looked right back at them. _I see you and I know what you’re thinking_ and _in your dreams boyo_. Monica had liked peeking in girlie mags and studying the sweet science of va-va-voom as closely as she studied for her SATs. In college, her roommate made fun of her for spending so long on makeup, but there was a reason magicians hired girls in tight costumes to misdirect the audience. Once you had captured someone’s attention, you could sneak anything in under their nose. Like being one of the only girls in her dorm without designer clothes or an allowance from her parents. She learned that being undercover sometimes meant being comfortable with being very visible.

But lately she’d looked at herself in the mirror less, glancing in quick bursts to check for lipstick smudges and hair drama, then getting dismayed when she saw how her skirts got twisted because of her new lop-sided walk. She saw her white knuckle grip on the crutches and had to remind herself not to take her frustration out on them.

The accident had left her shaken. For whole minutes she’d even considered calling her lousy, worthless, good-for-nothing ex-husband. He was a loser through and through, but he had always been distractingly nice to look at. And that was when Monica knew she was in real trouble.

Since her divorce, she had worked with Dr. Iqbal, her shrink, on attachment cycles, relationship history, and her fatal blind spot for pulchritude. This was why on New Year’s Eve she and Maite toasted each other and Monica resolved that she would henceforth only date guys who impressed her with something other than looks. No more handsome men. Maite rolled her eyes, which only made Monica more stubborn.

It had turned out to be a challenge in a city where everyone was obsessed with surfaces.

She had dated self-professed Nice Guys who couldn’t contain their seething resentment at womankind for longer than an entree. Men who lectured her about eating clean. Jazz enthusiasts who thought hip-hop was beneath contempt. Libertarians.

It was tough. Not just on her ego, which had taken enough of a battering in the divorce, but in trying to reset her internal compass. Monica had always trusted her gut. It was what kept her alive, over and over again, over negotiation tables, driving a clapped-out motorbike through the streets of Lima in pursuit of a child trafficker, fighting for a Céline jacket at a sample sale in Culver City. But apparently she couldn’t trust it over symmetrical features, sharp cheekbones, and cut abs. She didn’t know what it was inside her that had failed. It felt like her stupid leg, crumpling at the end of a long day when Monica needed it to get the groceries inside.

Determined to pass on her hard-won knowledge to the next generation, she invited her niece over for a heart to heart talk. Holding Consuela’s face up to hers, Monica delivered the speech she’d wished her Mama had told her. “Do not fall for a pretty face, or a good body, or - _especially_ \- a fast car, Connie. Look for the man who will try to win you over through consideration. Who listens to you and respects you. I know your hormones - don’t make that face at me, _niña_ \- are buzzing like mosquitos, but make yourself look for what’s inside their hearts.”

“Auntie, I will but - ”

“Look at your mother, raising three kids alone. Look at me! I am a federal agent with a Master’s and I was still stupid enough to get hitched to that _imbécil_ George, only for three months, but it cost me a lot to get rid of him, remember. I had to sell my house. You loved that house! Think about that before you get into some douchebag’s tricked-out whip.”

“No one says ‘tricked out’ anymore, Auntie.”

“You know what I mean. You are too beautiful to let yourself be weak for a man.”

Connie rested her hands on Monica’s lap and leaned it. “Auntie, thank you, but it’s _no grande problema_. I’m not that interested in men.”

“Maybe not yet, but when you’re in college next year -”

“Auntie. I have a girlfriend.”

Monica had to catch her breath. “You do?”

Nodding, her niece replied kindly. “For six months now. I’ve always known.”

“Some detective I am. Give me a hug!”

Pulling away from Connie’s embrace, Monica narrowed her eyes. “And who is this girlfriend? Why haven’t we met her yet? Don’t you roll your eyes at me, get out that iPhone and tell her to come over for dinner.”

 

=

Like Connie, she was going to avoid men altogether. For a while at least. Regroup. Focus on her goals. That didn’t mean she couldn’t look when a ripped dude the size of a grizzly wandered into her line of vision. Monica was a trained investigator, observing wasn’t a habit she could just shrug off. It meant that looking was as far as it was going to go. She had objectives to meet. And there was no reason to believe there was any special sauce about this guy’s prime beef.

Monica Fuentes believed she could be a Director of the bureau of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and be in the position to influence laws on drugs and illegal immigration that would make some damn sense.

She was going to be the eternally single, embarrassing aunt and wise old crone of the neighborhood. She was going to wear her Malone Souliers pink suede pumps again, and take Connie and her girlfriend Veronica out teach them to dance real Cuban danzón and not just twerking or whatever the lesbian equivalent was. Then she would get them to teach her the lesbian equivalent.

Just the physical rehab to get through first.

The receptionist took a break from thirsting over the human Panzer Tank sitting across from her to call out Monica’s name. She was a little too quick to stand up and tottered back into her chair. On her second attempt, her handbag strap caught on the chair handle. By this point the living, breathing embodiment of Do You Even Lift, Bro? had got up and was extending a hand to her. His smile was intergalactic. Monica huffed herself up on to her crutches without any help.

She headed towards the doorway at a dangerously rakish angle, but still managed a weak smile and a “thank you” towards the man mountain. He’d had the good sense not to laugh at her wobbling, and Monica’s self-esteem needed the protection right now.

 

=

Monica knew all about playing the long game. After that scumbag in Coahuila had shot at her three times, she’d hopped out of her hospital bed and put her heels back on, run his ass down and spent six months dismantling his cartel’s supply lines. She had spent weeks in basement archives digging up dirt on a small town mayor who’d been taking kickbacks from white supremacist terrorists; she’d done undercover work in Managua over summer while wearing the rattiest weave in Christendom; and then there was the time with Cole.

Still, she dreaded the drive to physio. She couldn’t even bring herself to play music during the drive in. It made her superstitious, somehow, that she’d lose her focus on getting the ligaments to heal in the right way.

St. Marvin’s Road was a long, dingy strip of asphalt dotted with liquor stores and evangelical churches. Just before the turn off that took her the clinic was a patch of green hosting one of the saddest playgrounds she’d seen.

Every time she’d tell herself not to look at it. Every time her head would shift of its own accord and take it in, hurtling her back to another park, in another country. She’d only seen it once, the day she shot a man in broad daylight. They’d been in a car chase, Monica trying to get her contact, Esteban, out of Ciudad Juárez, the men in the other car trying to stop him by any means necessary. A blocked road had forced them to get out of the car and run, Monica carrying her Colt M1911 in one hand as she used the other to push Esteban ahead of her.

The man in the leather jacket had been at Monica’s two o’clock. He had a rifle pointed their way; she fired first. Hours later she’d see his body, lying flat where he’d fallen in the middle of a dilapidated playground. It was surrounded by a crowd of curious children. She’d tried to chase them away but all she wanted to do was touch their eyes and take the images away from them.

Waiting for the lights to change she’d look over at it. There were usually only a couple of kids there, circling around the one slide. She knew what they were doing; daring one another to go down it, even though the end had been snapped off and it was probably riddled with splinters.

There were often shady-looking grown ups lounging near the fence who Monica, who had spent most of her professional life studying illegal exchanges of narcotics and weapons, clocked in one look. Squinting her eyes in their direction she would try and set a hex to drive them off. Then the green would light up at last and she’d switch gears, leaving St. Marvin’s and the memories behind.

 

=

Rhino Dude had looked up when she hobbled into the waiting room and unloaded another thousand-watt smile that hit her right between the eyes. Monica kept her war face on.

The hombre could dress for his size, she would give him that. Lots of stacked guys just threw on a giant pair of jorts and the free t-shirt they got from Protein World, and in Monica’s humble opinion it was the equivalent of taking a beautiful landscape and covering it with ugly wallpaper. Since she’d been a teenager with a bust her school uniform couldn’t decently cover she’d learned to sew things to fit, and to this day she believed in Jesus, Justice, and good tailoring.

So when the Juggernaut bent to pick up something from the fall, she took note of how his pants stretched over all that ass. Purely as a matter of physics and engineering. And finance. She might buy stocks in Under Armour, the amount of it he was wearing. It had been Under Armour the week before. Today’s version was grey on grey, making him look like the world’s most luscious slice of granite.

“How you getting on with the treatment?”

Local accent. Smooth, mahogany, voice.

Monica lowered her eight-year-old _New Yorker_ by half an inch and looked over to him. “Fine. Dr. Ortiz is excellent.” Ortiz was a pain in the ass, but her balance was steadily getting better.

“Ah. I’ve got Samuels. She’s the by-the-book kind. Slow and steady.”

Monica lifted the magazine again. Just a fraction of an inch. Just to how she wasn’t too invested in chit-chat.

“You drive that Corvette C5? Honey of a ride. I saw you leave the other day. Looks immaculate.”

Monica stopped herself from preening. Under Armour Man had the tone right, talking about her baby with the appropriate respect. Not trying to work out what she was doing with not driving a Prius or mansplaining her own ride to her.

“Had her four years. Found her on Craiglist, badly banged up and in need of love.”

“Just like us, in need of a little repair.”

Speak for yourself, she wanted to say. Monica didn’t like being reminded that she wasn’t at optimal performance level, and wouldn’t be for several months. She didn’t like this reception area, inescapably dingy despite the white paint and plants, and she didn’t like waking up at 3AM in pain because her body had twisted itself up overnight. It made her feel lonely more than any undercover assignment ever had.

The magazine went back up and Monica pretended to read a profile of a 83-year-old Chilean sculptor.

 

=

“If I hear you say ‘It’s not my fault’ one more time, Stephens, I will kick this whole case over to Rylance’s department and let you hang out to dry. No more excuses - I gave you a direct order to get the children out of there, I have the paperwork to back it up. Account for your agent in the report, fully, and I will sign your report off. Nothing less. Anything else?”

Monica did not like taking calls within earshot of other people, but there was only the two of them in the waiting room and Stephens had to be told. She turned her phone off before she wrote a venomous email to Director Rylance about the mess his pet agent had left left to clean up. It wouldn’t help the situation, and she’d rather keep him team in the dark until it was strategically useful.

Shoving her phone into her bag she looked up to see Under Armour Man smiling at her. It was not the same smile he gave the elderly lady with the deep-fry tan and zimmer frame, or even the one he bestowed on Pink Tank Top Millennial Receptionist. This one was a smile with a hint of knowing to it. The smile that said, _I’ve been watching you just as carefully as you’ve been watching me_. The smile that might also say, _You’re no Do Nothing Bitch, and I like that._

Monica squeezed her legs together. She promised herself that tonight it’d be Doritos for dinner with the BBC Pride & Prejudice, plus her Hitachi Magic Wand.

He asked her, “What are you going to do when treatment is over?”

When it was over Monica was putting on leopard print stiletto ankle boots and heading to the gun range to fire a semi-automatic, followed shortly by drinking a large quantity of Margaritas with Maite. She smiled without showing teeth. “I am going dancing.”

He nodded, folding back the smile and matching her temperament, not trying to make her laugh or lighten up. It softened her, a little. She said, “You?”

He rolled his shoulders. “Move some iron. Get my bench press back on. Relearn how to make a stir fry with two hands. Finish building a Dora the Explorer adventure playground.”

“Ms. Fuentes? We’re ready for you now.”

The receptionist looked sad to see Monica get up. She probably wanted to hear more about the playground, too.

 

=

Usually by the time she’d left Ortiz’s painful care, Under Armour man was nowhere to be seen. She assumed his appointments must end before hers, probably because there was less arguing and bitching in his sessions. The humongous Cadillac Escalade pickup she’d see in the parking lot on her way in would be gone by the time she got out of the clinic. Monica noted these things because she was a trained investigator. That was all.

But the day came that she got out early - “a brief respite, because there’s nothing I can do with these adductor muscles today. Take it easy, for heaven’s sake,” - and there was Under Armour man, talking to someone in the lobby. Someone about four feet tall who must’ve weighed as much as one of his biceps.

“Tell me, Sammy, were you good for Mrs. Semisi?”

Monica had around 3 seconds to do the deduction: Mrs. Semisi was the older woman headed out the door, Sammy was the name of the excruciatingly adorable girl Under Armour man was talking to, and Under Armour man had a daughter.

Who was pointing right at her. “Is that the cool business lady you talk about, Dad?”

“Samantha! _Whatdidwesayaboutpointingatpeople_?” She’d never heard him sound anything less than self-assured before.

“She looks awesome…”

Monica smiled at Sammy and gave her a little wave as she moved slowly past them. Her uterus was cramping six ways to Sunday and her leg ached to kingdom come, but she was going out those doors looking as awesome as possible.

 

=

On the next visit, Monica lowered herself gingerly into her seat, pushing aside the pain radiating out of her hip to focus her attention on Under Armour man, who had quickly put his phone away once she walked in.

“So, how old is Sammy?”

“Seven and three-quarters. This week she’s decided she’s too big for a night light.”

“No monsters under her bed, huh?”

“Not on my watch. I do monster patrol right.”

“So she’s got nothing to be afraid of.” As she said it, Monica felt a sudden momentary sadness, remembering what it was like to think there was nothing dangerous enough in the world to get beyond a parent’s protection.

“She gets more fearless every day. I go the other way. My mom helped me raise her, for the first four years, before she passed, and now it’s just me.” He did a half-flex. “And I’m down an arm.”

The nurse came to the doorway and nodded at Monica. She hauled herself up. There was a lot of information in that statement to process.

“I think she’ll be fine. Just hold on to that night light for her.”

 

=

The next time she saw Under Armour Man the reception was surprisingly busy, with an annoyed-looking old woman already in Monica’s usual seat. Monica respected annoyed old ladies, she knew her fairytales and also the likelihood that she’d turn into one, so she squeezed on to the less-padded plastic chair next to him. He showed her pictures of Sammy’s Halloween costume (Gabby Douglas) and cheerfully boasted that he’d helped her sew it.

It made the visit easier. It made the whole ride home easier. Monica didn’t look at the depressing playground, get angry at a news report on NPR, or feel frustrated when she saw her neighbor’s car parked unnervingly close to her driveway.

In the bedroom she stood in front of her full length mirror. Looked at herself with her crutches in hand, her clothes off, the day’s make up flaking at the edges, all the lights on. She knew she had to stop flinching from what was directly ahead of her.

 _You’re doing OK_ , her reflection said back to her. And if some innocent flirting with a ten ton block of handsome got her there, it got her there.

She still wasn’t going to tell Maite about her new physio clinic friend just yet. Her body was still healing and it didn’t need the earache.

 

=

It was a long, frustrating meeting in a week that had been full of long, frustrating meetings. The topic was the emergence of an electronic index of “private military companies”, i.e. mercenary scumbags with wifi. The plan Monica had spent a month putting together couldn’t be signed off without getting certain windbags on side, and one mule-stubborn windbag in particular had demanded this meeting before signing off. She tried to keep the contempt out of her voice as she explained for the fourth time why they needed to act now, how her plan could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in manpower down the line, and that as her existing budget had been cut tighter than her uncle Omar at a quinceañera she would need these extra funds to proceed.

The windbag didn’t even make an attempt to look like he was listening. Sonuvabitch would do anything to avoid his office undertaking more than the bare minimum of work.

At the end he didn’t even hold open the door for her behind him.

She was planning how to outmaneuver his whole department and gut his credibility like a fish when she spotted a familiar silhouette walking down a hallway ahead of her. It had to be Under Armour man. His sling was just about visible, as was the span of his shoulders and the elegant trapezoid of his head. He moved as if he was familiar with the building, though he certainly wasn’t ICE.

Planting her crutches into the deep pile carpet, she pivoted and made for third floor reception.

Rosalee looked up through her lashes at Monica’s approach. “Nice chrome on those, Fuentes.”

Monica had to admit that her crutches weren’t as impressive as Rosalee’s wheelchair, which she’d had customized in lavender to match her favorite MAC nail polish.

“The Hulk who passed through five minutes ago. Arm in a sling. I need a name.”

“You mean Samoan Thor? He’s DSS. Name of Hobbs.”

“What else do you know?”

Rosalee smiled. “That he scares the living shit out of Director Cooper. And he always asks me why I’m not running this place yet.”

“And?”

She shrugged. “I like my weekends off, you know.”

“About Hobbs, Ros.”

“Why you so interested? Is it the connection with O’Connor and that Brazil mess?”

Wait, he was _that_ Hobbs? Monica had spent hours trying to get to the full story behind the Brazil incident. She had kept hearing over and over that “Hobbs is not one for paperwork.”

Smacking her hand on the desk, she pursed her lips, then looked back at Rosalee.

“He was on the ground there, right? A collaboration with the Polícia Civil that went downhill almost instantly.”

Rosalee nodded, not even trying not to look smug.

“Anything else?”

“He has a dossier on everything related to Toretto, entirely unofficially, and ordered copies of Verone’s case file from ICE as soon as he got back from Rio.”

Oh, it was like that. Monica calculated the dates in her head. Her name was off the ICE file Hobbs would have received, but if Hobbs had even one decent contact in the agency who’d been around in 2003, he could’ve tracked her down. He hadn’t so far. Perhaps he didn’t make friends easily. Perhaps he didn’t know about O’Connor’s escapades in Miami. Perhaps he’d find them interesting.

“What has this cost me?”

Rosalee pursed her lips and tapped her fingers. “For you? Mani-pedi at Gloria’s. And a glass of rosé afterwards.”

“Get Sonya to add it to my diary. I’ll meet you there.”

 

=

He wasn’t at the clinic that week. Pink Tank Top Millennial receptionist spilled the tea with a minimum of wheedling from Monica. Luke Hobbs had changed treatment times, to fit in better with Sammy’s Girl Scout meetings.

Monica spent her downtime assembling intel. She couldn’t make a conclusion one way or the other. A reasonable part of her brain said to drop it, to wait until Hobbs would be a useful work contact, and resume her focus on treatment. Ortiz had got her off the crutches. She wasn’t in pain all the time. There was no reason to disrupt her progress with a 6’ 5” complication with a wardrobe full of close-fitting t-shirts.

She went into her appointment thinking that she’d bet hard cash that he would become Sammy’s troop leader and take cookie selling very seriously.

 

=

A month later she was driving down St Marvin’s to the clinic. Today was her final check-up appointment to get the all clear. It was her chance to feel triumphant, but the familiar road put her nerves on edge. To combat the jitters she pumped up the stereo and tried to focus on the rhythm of the music and not old memories.

The lights were red. Strumming her fingers to the afrobeat drums on the stereo, her eyes darted around. They landed on the playground. There were more kids there than ever before, and more adults who looked like parents and not drug dealers.

And there was something else new. Shifting her car forward a few inches, she could make it out. A Dora the Explorer adventure playground. Covered in children.

 

Hobbs’s office was down a long corridor.

He looked up as she walked in. Monica pointed to him. “You. You can take me dancing.”

 

=

Monica sent three selfies to Maite to help her choose her outfit. Her sister messaged back, “U want 2 intimidate him with goddess power or r u planning to do something unholy tonite?”

She replied “Both OF COURSE. Blue skirt?”

“Blue skirt + pink pumps. Have fun!” and threw down the red dress emoji, plus crying laughing face and an eggplant, which Monica thought was presumptuous of her.

The doorbell rang as she was walking through a cloud of Ysatis. Precisely on time. Hobbs made her doorway look dinky sized as he leaned in with an armful of flowers.

Monica tried not to let her sudden appetite for eggplant show.

 

=

It wasn’t until after she’d gotten into the passenger seat of Hobb’s Escalade that she thought to ask the question.

“You can dance?”

“Woman, you are sitting next to the First Samoan Congregational Church of Compton’s mixed pairs dancing teenage division champion 1986 through to ‘89.”

Monica pulled her seat belt carefully across her blouse. “What happened in ‘90?”

“Babette Leuluaialii told me that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the sexiest man alive and I took up weightlifting.”

“So Babette refused to dance with you.”

“Babette had danced with me back when we were kids at our cousin’s weddings. If I had known that was the last time she’d willingly hold my hand, I wouldn’t have spent all my pocket money on a set of dumbbells.”

 

He took her to a Mexican place with a live mariachi band and a dance floor lit by fairy lights. She ate an enormous bowl of pozole verde and swapped Consuela stories for Sammy stories. Hobbs didn’t seem to want to discuss work anymore than she did, briefly mentioning that he’d hurt his arm “on call.” Monica let the subject drop and switched to chit-chat standards of favorite music (he loved country), movies (she’d go to every soapy costume drama that came out but couldn’t stand horror), and Nintendo vs Sega (Mario was the prince of both their hearts).

When she finished her wine he held his hand out and directed an eyebrow towards the band. Most of their fellow dancers were elderly couples who leaned into each other’s arms with the comfort of decades. Some of them still wanted to show that they could move, too.

Monica was a little off-kilter on her heels. Hobbs was still stiff in his left shoulder. It didn’t matter. They fit together like a lock and key, rattling the floorboards until Monica’s heartbeat thundered in her ears. At the end of their Samoan-Cuban fusion bolero they inspired a round of applause from the crowd. Monica hid her look of satisfaction in Hobbs’s shoulder. His hand drew a long loop down the curve of her back to graze the top of her ass and back up to caress a shoulder blade.

“How are your legs holding up?”

She kept leaning into him. “Good for one more round. Then I’d like to take this somewhere else.”

A questioning eyebrow went up. “Another bar?”

“There’s no bar at my place. But there is a bottle of añejo tequila and fresh limes.”

Monica didn’t mention that there was a bed at her place, too. Hobbs could work that out all by himself.

 

=

He was a good kisser. Of course he was. Monica had long since concluded that Luke Hobbs was devoted to being exceptional at everything he did. Her only issue was that he didn’t seem to be any kind of rush about it, which was the opposite of how Monica felt. This was electric, insistent, like it hadn’t been in so long. She wanted to get her fingers everywhere. Nipping at his ears and rubbing her face on the soft skin of his neck, she thought how she would be game for any kind of filthy stuff right now, and Hobbs went on holding her with an infuriatingly gentle grip.

Competent and thorough in all things. Monica dug it. She couldn’t wait to rattle him out of it.

Taking one of those big, powerful hands, she slipped it inside her blouse.

Hobbs pulled his mouth from hers. “Are you trying to accelerate me?”

“My thigh is beginning to cramp. You’ve got three minutes to get me horizontal.”

Ninety seconds and some clothing removal later, they were rolling around Monica’s queen-sized bed like stoned teens. Hobbs wasn’t increasing the pace, but Monica had shifted gears, grinding up against his bulk, feeling supple and lavish now her weight was off her feet.

She smirked once she’d got Hobbs down to his inevitable Under Armour shorts, feeling giddy at the sight of his legs and running inquisitive fingertips along the clefts of the muscles. Her stomach twisted with joy at the proximity of so much power being focused on her.

Licking over on his collarbone, she said, “Your tattoos are beautiful.”

“Sammy calls them my coloring-in shapes.” She expected him to keep joking, but he touched her face and spoke in a lower tone. “You are stunning.”

When it came to slipping off her bra, Hobbs didn’t pull any James Bond-style slick moves. He gave it the time and attention that a sophisticated piece of engineering warranted. Dipping his head to her chest, he laid feather-light kisses on her nipples, which were very happy for the attention.

Monica felt greedy for touch all over. Sucking his fingers into her mouth, she rolled her spine and let her breasts tremble invitingly. Hobbs moved between her knees while balancing on one thick forearms. His other hand had finally, blissfully, shifted below her waistline.

He lifted her left leg carefully, stroking a thumb up and down over the puffy joints that were still adjusting to use. Kept eye contact as he ran his lips over the spiderweb of broken blood vessels that stained the curve of her knee, and licked his way down to the darker skin on the inside of her thighs.

Monica had left the garter belt in her wardrobe but had broken out the Kiki de Montparnasse bikini underwear, an ivory lace and silk confection that made her skin glow in contrast. They were fine enough for her to feel the heat of Hobb’s breath as he drew closer, then the fuzz of his beard and warmth of his mouth as he kissed over them.

“Careful with those. They cost me more than my first car did.”

Crafty fingers slid them off her hips.

“Silk. The real stuff.”

“I’m very high maintenance.”

“Damn right you are.”

She pushed his head down.

For a man who liked to run his mouth, Hobbs proved to be good at running his mouth. Monica kept things neat but not sparse down there, having always enjoyed the rough texture of her pubic hair next to the tenderness of her vulva. Hobbs dove right in, gentle fingers making space for his mouth. She hiked up her feet under her hips and spread her knees, the stiffness in her pelvis easily to ignore as the buzzing warmth spread and sparked into neon shocks. Moaning, her head fell back into her pillow of hair, wetness filling her mouth as those sweetest muscles began to contract feverishly.

Sometimes she ran dry, but not tonight. Her body speedily slicked up under the attention of Hobbs’s gifted tongue. Tightening her stomach she let the first waves of pleasure shake through her core. Lovely, wonderful, but not nearly enough.

“Mmmph,” she explained clearly to Hobbs as she slapped at his head and pulled at his shoulder. “ _Nnnnhh_.”

Hobbs was a smart guy. He got the idea and moved up over her like a sunrise. She pushed down his waistband and finally succeeded in freeing him of all Under Armour branding. Checking him out, Monica resolved that next time round, she’d do her share of body worship, because as temples go, Hobbs was the Sistine Chapel. But tonight she’d wanted a little cossetting.

After a brief flurry of speed during the hunt for the most proximate condom, Hobbs went back to steady and even movements. Monica wrapped her legs around him loosely and held on through the thrusts of his hips, enraptured by the sweat building up on his skin before she couldn’t concentrate on much more than the give of muscles as her tension capsized into release.

Tears budded in her eyes as she came. Her body had felt like such a traitor, and she’d been such a bully to it, and now it was doing this for her.

Afterwards, they lay in disarray. Monica draped herself over Hobb’s expansive chest. It was like curling up on a large Polynesian divan, with lungs and a goatee.

She kissed his neck and laughed. “I don’t know what Samuels told you, but Dr. Ortiz told me to ease back into cardio workouts.”

Hooking two finger around her wrist Hobbs made to take her pulse. “Your recovery time is acceptable, Fuentes. My professional advice is to increase your reps.”

“Round two tomorrow then?”

“And three.” He kissed her. “And four. After a substantial breakfast, of course.”

“Never let it be said, Luke Hobbs,” she said, resettling her weight over his body, “that I’m not committed to my full physical rehabilitation.”


End file.
